Chilling Portrayal: The Iceman's Legacy on Film

Organized Crime and Punishment

Title: Chilling Portrayal: The Iceman's Legacy on Film

Original Publication Date: 8/16/2023

Transcript URL: https://share.descript.com/view/xgTnsXwkc7o

Description: In this episode of Organized Crime and Punishment, Mustache Chris and Steve delve deep into the chilling world of the critically acclaimed movie "The Iceman." This episode dissects the mesmerizing portrayal of the notorious contract killer Richard Kuklinski by Michael Shannon and disentangles the intricate web of organized crime he was a part of. From the gritty streets to the suspenseful courtroom scenes, we analyze how the film captures the chilling reality of a man leading a double life – family man by day and ruthless hitman by night. Tune in to explore the moral dilemmas, the complex characters, and the parallels to real-life criminal enterprises. As we explore the shades of gray in the criminal world, we raise questions about justice and punishment. Join the conversation using #RichardKuklinski #TheIcemanMovie #ColdBloodedKiller #ContractKiller #RealLifeCrime #TrueCrimeStory #OrganizedCrimeSaga #CriminalMastermind as we unravel the cinematic portrayal of organized crime and its consequences. You can learn more about Organized Crime and Punishment and subscribe at all these great places:

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Begin Transcript:

[00:00:00] Welcome to Organized Crime and Punishment, the best spot in town to hang out and talk about history and crime, with your hosts, Steve and Mustache Chris.

In the last couple of episodes, Chris and I talked about the real history and background of mobsters Richard the Iceman, Kuklinski, Roy DeMeo, and his famous crew. Today, we're going to talk about the 2012 film based on these events, the Iceman starring Michael Shannon, Winona Ryder, Ray Liotta, and more. So I really want to share a quick comment from our last YouTube live stream from one Wolfgang Schmuck.

That's a great, [00:01:00] that's a great, uh, YouTube name. So, um, he says the guy on the right has the most perfect, clean looking mustache I've ever seen. Uh, mustache. How you doing? Oh, doing good. I'm pretty, uh, like the rest of my friends and family make jokes about the mustache. I've had it for so long now. I just, I'm just going to keep it.

I'm never getting rid of it. And apparently, uh, somebody else pointed out that I look like, uh, Chris Rosenberg. And then I just, we were just looking at a picture and I was like, yeah, it's actually a little bit uncanny. Like his eye, like his hair is longer and stuff like that. But. I mean, I see it in the eyes, and then the mustache, I mean, there is definitely some similarity there.

Wait, when did Chris Rosenberg die, and when were you born? Are you Chris Rosenberg reincarnated, maybe? I don't know, it'll be for the people to decide. Now this movie, uh, The Iceman, I have to say, it has, [00:02:00] I watched it probably more or less when it came out, and I liked it. This movie has so grown on me, to, to maybe it's one of my favorite mob movies.

Of all time, because I wouldn't say just overall, it's not the most accurate movie I have ever seen, but it really captures something about the times, about Richard Kuklinski, and about what else was going on in the New York mafia scene in the 70s and the 80s. What did you think in your first couple of watches of this movie?

Like you, when it first came out, I watched it right away because I heard about Richard Kuklinski. Michael Shannon, I always kind of, I've always enjoyed his acting, so I just, I watched and I enjoyed it, but, and I knew a little bit about Roy DeMeo and like a little bit of the history, but not a ton. But like, since doing like the 2 kind of deep dive background episodes and really [00:03:00] reading about that particular area and time period of the mob, I've.

Like yourself, I actually kind of appreciate this movie more than I did before, which is, I've heard opposite, I've heard the opposite from people where they, they read more about Richard and they're like, Oh, this movie doesn't, doesn't do it properly. And it's, well, I mean, we'll get into that a little bit later.

I think, like you pointed out to me and you were talking earlier in the week, it, it really captures the whole feel of that era that you get from when you do some research into, uh. Because it's a very particular era, like, era of the mob, especially like the DiMeo and Kuglinski, like, even location of like where they were doing a lot of their work, it's um, it's a very particular feel to it, and I believe the movie captures it really well.

Yeah, we'll get into some of it. We'll talk about some of the scenes that we really enjoyed and talk a little bit about the historical, historical accuracy of it. But I think people will see that even [00:04:00] though some things weren't exactly historically correct and they changed some names and they, they did some weird stuff with the, with the timing, it really was, each scene was something that Richard Kuklinski Talked about or that had actually happened.

Yeah, so let's maybe talk a little bit about some of those details that were changed right off the bat. If we look at some of the main characters. So Michael Shannon played Richard Kuklinski. Winona Ryder played Richard's wife. They called her Deborah. But, um, her real name was Barbara Kuklinski, and I think she might be the first person to talk about because I think she really nailed something with Barbara Kuklinski.

You can watch some interviews she did on some shows in the 90s and in the early 2000s, and I think she captured something. So [00:05:00] specific about and so accurately about, uh, Barbara Kuklinski. What did you think? I agree with that, too, but no, the writer really captures that kind of working class, like home, like homeless.

And I'm trying to what's the word I'm thinking of, like that working class. Like she's working class, but she, you know, she's very wholesome. Yeah. I think that's the best way I can describe it. I think she also, you, you get through her acting and several of the scenes that. She knows there's something up with Richard, but she's willing to turn a blind eye to it, and I think that that's what I really got from the, from the real Barbara.

She knew, somewhere deep inside of her, obviously she knew Richard had a Hair trigger temper and he would trash the place, but I think she intrinsically knew that there was something way darker to Richard than even [00:06:00] what she saw in the house. Yeah, and it you see it right up like the first scene with them when they're on their first date.

She notices he's got a grim Reaper tattoo on his. On his hand and it's all you know, I had this one back in the day. I was trying to look tough and you get a sense that she's, she's attracted to it because she probably, you know, is attracted to the, the tough guy, the bad boy, the reformed bad boy. I know it's a cliche, but it's the truth.

Um, in actuality, the tattoo wasn't a grim reaper was, um, come, it was Yeah. It was a tattoo that him and this gang that he, when he was pretty young, coming up with the coming up roses gang, they all got the same tattoo on the hand. Um, but I mean, the grim reapers says, you know, serves the same purpose now that, um, I think it's probably good we talk about the Gemini crew of Ray Liotta playing Roy DeMeo, James Frank, or not James Franco, he'll come in later.

But David Schwimmer playing, [00:07:00] they called him Josh Rosenthal, but he was really representing Chris Rosenberg. And then Robert Davi playing, Leo Merckx, but who was actually Anthony Gaggi, Nino Gaggi, and I think there was something about each one of those that so masterfully just absolutely grabbed who they were supposed to be, especially Ray Liotta.

I've been saying this for weeks that we've been talking about this. Roy DeMeo was the role. Ray Liotta was born to play. Oh yeah, for sure. Like, and just watching this movie and, you know, going and doing the back research for the Roy DeMille episode, it just makes me want to go, it's terrible to think that we're never going to get a Ray Liotta.

Roy DeMeo movie because it would have been perfect. Um, yeah, he was born to play this role and I mean, I, this might be a little because he doesn't have like a ton of screen time in the movie, but if you had somebody else playing Roy DeMeo, I just don't think the [00:08:00] movie would have worked as well. Because you need somebody with the same kind of intensity that Michael Shannon has to play off back and forth off each other because, you know, reading the movie that seemed to, I mean, reading for the movie that seemed to kind of be the relationship that Roy DeMille and Richard had in real life, according to Richard, depends on who you believe, but Yeah, there used to, there was like a certain level of intensity between the two of them.

Then, um, the, the interplay of Chris Rosenberg, uh, Josh Rosenthal and Roy, uh, I thought that they got that really well too. I know some people criticize that it seemed that they played down Chris, Chris's role, but I think that he Really, they really got something with that in that David Schwimmer looked close in age to Ray Liotta.

I don't know how close they are in actuality. They're probably fairly close in age. [00:09:00] Um, and, uh, Chris Rosenberg was just a little bit younger than Roy, but they really had a father son relationship. Yeah, and David Schwimmer, just as an actor, I thought was a perfect choice to play Chris Rosenberg. I know that sounds kind of crazy because he's like the guy from Friends, but when you read Chris Rosenberg, he comes across as a guy that tries really hard to be funny.

To not be what he is, which is like a Jewish guy, uh, like tries really hard to be really Italian and it comes across when you read it that he comes across almost as like a try hard and David Schwimmer plays that type of role. That was basically the role that he played on friends and it comes comes across perfectly in this movie, but you get to see him as this brutal killer to like.

Chris Rosenberg had absolutely no problem killing people. And I And didn't you get that? I think that came through with [00:10:00] David Schwimmer. Oh yeah, for sure. I mean, and like Chris Rosenberg was like his, well, I don't know. We won't get into it. It's pretty, pretty graphic. But, uh, yeah, you definitely get that sense with David Schwimmer in this movie.

But when he shoots out the, the two, uh, coke dealers, right, you see the ruthlessness there, uh, for sure. But it, you know, I would have liked to have seen more of them in the movie, but I mean, there's time constraints and. But yeah, I thought David hit it out of the park.

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And then, uh, I loved Robert Davi as, uh, Nino Gaggi. [00:11:00] Even though his role was tinier, uh, smaller than even, uh, Ray Liotta's or David Schwimmer's. I think he, again, he captured something of the pompousness and... Maybe the foolishness of Nino Gaggi, like the pettiness, how pompous and petty Nino was. I think Robert Davi really grabbed that.

Oh, yeah, for sure. It's, I'd like to, I don't really know why they didn't use Nino Gaggi's name. I, I assume it's probably some legal stuff, like maybe descendants of like Gaggi or something, the friend of Sue, and that's why they use Leo Marx. Uh, it's probably nice. I would assume it has something to do with that.

Um, yeah, he like he really does capture just like the pettiness of Nino and the cheapness and there's a couple scenes that illustrate that and this is the thing with this movie Like we pointed out like yeah, it's not historically accurate in some ways, but it really it Captures everything that you need to know about, like, Nino Gaggi, like, in terms of not [00:12:00] wanting to pay for work that he said he was gonna pay for, and, like, the pettiness, some guy, you know, they get into a little, you know, scuffle, or what have you, and then he hires a hitman to go kill him, you know, that's something Nino would do, we know that, because Nino, Ends up killing that boxer that got a, he got into a fist fight with like 12 years later, he's still steaming about it.

You know, just like pettiness over a broken nose. And then the last one I think we have to, we have to mention is Chris Evans. He played Robert, Mr. Softy Prongay, and they called him Mr. Freezy in the movie. That might've been because Mr. Softy is a trademarked, uh, name. I didn't know, I had never seen much with Chris Evans, but he captured.

Magnificently, the craziness of Robert Prange. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's, I guess he's most famous for playing like Captain America, right. And like the all American boy. And I mean, he plays that really well. Cause he kind of does [00:13:00] look like the part, but. He, I'm totally surprised at just how well he did Robert, I didn't even know it was Chris Evans when I first watched the movie, but then upon multiple viewings, I realized it was him and, you know, and researching the movie and he.

Based off what Richard told us about Robert ProE. Chris Evans, yeah. Hits it out of the park. Like he captures that certain, that craziness that is, uh, that Robert ProE was, let's take it. So we, I mean the acting was really out of this world and we, we didn't even, I guess we should mention Michael Shannon as Richard Kuklinski.

I think one thing that you had mentioned, what did you think about, you mentioned earlier. You know, just talking now that you thought you loved the intensity he brought, but you didn't feel that he brought the physicality of Richard Kuklinski. No, I like the intensity for sure. Um, but when you see [00:14:00] pictures of Richard Kalinsky and you read about people describing Richard Kalinsky, he is like literally a monster, right?

Like he's six five over 300 pounds. I mean, Michael Shannon's pretty tall, but he doesn't look like he's over 300 pounds in this movie. Uh, and I mean that to me, that's like a little nitpicking thing, I guess, because I'm, how many actors are you going to be able to find that would match like the talent of Michael Shannon and the intensity and plus be six, five, you know, 300 plus pounds is not many.

There's not many actors that probably out there that you could hire to pull it off. But that's one little thing I would have liked. I would have liked to. A guy that was more physically intimidating. Yeah, I looked at Michael Shannon. He's tall. I think he's well over six feet tall, but he's thin. He's, you know, even when they showed him in the movie, like a, uh, up next to Winona Ryder, he was much large, taller than her, but he didn't physically dominate her [00:15:00] and or even, um, Ray Liotta as Roy DeMeo, like standing next to him.

He was. Tall, but he didn't physically just completely dwarf these people like he did. I think I even noticed one of the scenes he was clearly wearing lifts to make himself a little top, probably to make him look a little taller. I mean, they look like seventies shoes too. So it could have been just that.

Yeah, yeah, that's just my, my, I don't know. That's one, that would have been like something they could have done maybe differently, but then it's not that big of a deal. I think Michael Shannon did the role very well. So let's talk about a couple of those individual scenes that really stuck with us. What's maybe one scene that really stuck with you?

I mean, um, I would say like the, the, like the, the scene in the porn lab between Richard and Ray, because according to Richard, this is kind of the way he met, um, sorry, Richard and Roy DeMeo. This is kind of, uh, [00:16:00] how they met was Richard was working at this porn lab. And I think there was, if I'm remembering correctly, there was some problem with.

Uh, I don't know. There wasn't the shipment was going to make out make out on time. And, you know, Roy just smacks him around a bit. And according to Richard, like he. Said to himself like he swore revenge. He was gonna get revenge on uh, Roy for ever putting his hands on him and it just really captured the the intensity of Richard and the Intensity of Roy and you have like these two You know psychotic guys staring each other down it was uh, perfect and It kind of shows like the stuff that Richard and Roy were into we didn't really get into it Uh so much in the background episodes, but like Roy was funding a ton of this Pornography that was going around in the United States at the time.

And it wasn't a lot of, it wasn't just like normal pornography. There was some pretty vile stuff that we were, um, um, shipping [00:17:00] around and Richard was right into it too. And you know, it's yeah. So I don't know, to me, that was one of the better scenes in the movie. I liked the scene and it really, I think it like it, it, it got to me and I think I didn't really understand it when I saw it and I probably didn't even understand it the last couple of times I watched it.

I was just watching it today and it hit me that scene where Richard meets with his brother. Joseph in the prison, and that's the scene where I think we get the real hint of Richard's childhood. That's something that they don't show at all in the movie, except for one five second flashback in that scene.

And it really gets dropped after that, but I think that for me, that's what made me think that this movie you really need to know the story of Richard Kuklinski going into it, or else I think you can go on a kind of a false narrative. And I don't know if that's what [00:18:00] the filmmakers were trying to get.

It's to get, they built this narrative of Richard being like the typical classical family man who maybe starts to fall apart where, um, Richard had all this background before he even met Barbara, which if you go back to the previous episodes, you'll hear. And that one scene gave us a little taste of that.

A little taste, yeah, and it was something that we had, we didn't get into on the Richard, uh. Podcast two is that that's accurate. His brother was murdered. Um, I believe it was a young lady and he was in that he was in jail for that. Um, and then the Iceman, uh, Philip Carlo book you hear about Richard talks about like trying to help.

He was trying to help his brother and they were actually pretty close. And then after his brother Joseph did that, he kind of cut him off. And that's what you see in the. And that scene is Richard basically just [00:19:00] saying, like, never call again, like, it's completely done. Um, but the one thing I really liked about that scene is his brother screaming at him saying, like, you're going to wind up in here with me.

And that's exactly what happened. I think it was a few cell blocks away from his brother. Yeah, when he was finally caught, then I think it was the very next scene after that, or maybe it was a little bit longer down when Richard Kuklinski gets into that road rage incident. Yeah, and I think you again, you see who the real Richard Kuklinski was that that whole.

facade and even the facade that the movie puts up that he's the all American family man, you know, dad of the year. And then he goes on this insane road rage. That's who Richard was a hundred percent. And that, and then if you, in the. The Iceman, like, documentaries and the books, he talks about, like, just going on these freak road rages, and I mean, that's pretty accurate to what Richard did in real, like, [00:20:00] in real life, he says he, he killed a few of these people that he went on road rages with, but I mean, it captures, it shows you that they This is something that triggers Richard off is like, uh, is, uh, certain road, uh, road rage, uh, episodes.

Were there any other scenes that really stuck out to you? Um, I like the mod, like, so when Roy DeMeo hires Richard to be his personal, his personal, like, side special assassin or what have you, like me particularly, I don't think that's. Exactly how their relationship was. But let's just say in the movie, this is how they show it.

They do a montage of Richard doing a bunch of jobs for Roy and a lot of the, the, uh, killing that he does in that montage is killings that we hear about in the Philip Carlo book. Like, I like that touch. So it's not historically accurate. How? All those killings went down or what have you but you know we get the he uses like the rope in one [00:21:00] scene and there was like a couple of other ones and I just liked it because it I don't know it was a certain attention to detail and they yeah they change things a little bit but I mean it is somewhat it is.

Accurate in spirit one that seemed that they switched around is, um, I think it was in both of the books. The two major books on Richard Kuklinski. He said that Roy pulled an Uzi on him at the Gemini and. Was probably gonna kill Richard, but Richard was so ice cold like he didn't move and he didn't, uh, he didn't give that fear factor back to Roy that Roy was really looking for and they kind of showed that in the car scene where, uh, Roy pulls a gun on Richard and I That scene they never really talked about in any of the books, but I think that was kind of a mashup of scenes to just show, like, how ice cold Richard Kuklinski was, that even somebody like [00:22:00] as psychotic as Roy DeMeo couldn't shake him.

Yeah, that, that's what When we talked about it earlier is like that's something that the movie did particularly well was changing the scene a bit to make it the movie flow a little bit better but still capturing the spirit like historically accurate right rich like Roy pulling out the Uzi as you pointed out yeah they changed it a little bit but they they kind of recreated it in a sense that made more sense in the movie the movie really got me thinking And this, I wanted to bump this theory off of you is, so we really, we, in that first Richard Kuklinski episode, the background episode, we really came to the conclusion that we thought he was full of it.

But I wonder if the way the timeline works out, if you look at it, Richard's doing really, really well up until the early 80s. And then Roy DeMeo dies in 83, I think it was somewhere in thereabouts. And [00:23:00] it's really after 83. And when you get into the mid 90s, that Richard really started screwing up. And I wonder if maybe.

There is some truth that Richard, maybe he was not an international, uh, hit man assassin. I mean, I think that's preposterous. And I think that that's stuff that Richard pulled out later just to get people going. And, uh, especially his last interviewer. I think maybe he was doing that just because he knew they would eat that up.

That's preposterous. But what do you think that about? Richard was earning under Roy, and once Roy died, that's when it really fell apart because Richard then had to make his own criminal enterprises after that. Well, that and it would, Richard, that was his connection to... Like hit contracts, right? I guess and Roy was kind of is his personal capo.[00:24:00]

Um, I, yeah, I can totally, I can see it. I personally think that, like, I think Roy was doing hits for the mob. I think he did special jobs for I think he did some special jobs for Roy, or Roy at the very least pointed people in Richard Kuklinski's, uh, direction if he didn't really want much to do with them and, you know, word got around, I, that's what I personally think, um, and I, I guess when he saw Roy go down, maybe he started thinking to himself, well, I mean, if they're going to take, they can take Roy out, then it's only a matter of time for me, maybe And maybe subconsciously he starts getting sloppier, knowing that he'll get caught, at least in prison, he'll be somewhat safe.

It's also that it could be that after Roy was killed, that Richard and everybody associated with Roy was such damaged goods, he couldn't just go work for John Gotti or for the Westies or for somebody else and make the [00:25:00] kind of, uh, money that he was making. Through Roy, and so he had to get, he had to push himself way further than he really was ever comfortable with and I think he had been stealing cars and stuff, but it was all such sloppy stuff.

I think he, because he had, in all the books, they say that he spent money faster than it came in, and once that Roy money dried up, and they kind of show that in the movie too, where Roy says everybody has to stop doing everything, and he essentially laid off Richard, that that's when Richard started getting really sloppy.

Because he had to earn, yeah, yeah, he had to earn and it's also implied in the movie that like he had to he had this urge to kill like that was one of the things is like, oh, I'm really good at what I do. And it's like, yeah, part of it's like, this is how I make my living. But part of it is if I can't just.

If I can't kill people, then I, [00:26:00] I'm going to start taking it out on my family and what have you. And you kind of see it in the movie where he freaks out, uh, in real life. This happened a lot more often, but I mean, in, in the movie, he freaks out. And that's when he comes to, Oh, I'm going to reach out to Robert Prange.

And we're going to start doing jobs in the side. Cause I think it was implying that he couldn't hold these urges back anymore. And he had to, um, he had to. You know, unleash them somehow, and he also had to start making some coin. Yeah, that's, I think, that's another thing that the movie shows. It's this whole thing with Robert Prange, and how much of it, how much of the things that he did with Robert Prange, do you believe, especially what they showed in this movie, industrialist.

Freezing, uh, set up going and that they're both just doing one contract after another. And I don't get that that was really what they were doing. I mean, from my [00:27:00] understanding, they did kind of work together. Did they non, they like shared tricks of the trade. Uh, they, they bring up the cyanide spray, which is apparent according to Richard, Robert Prong is the one who taught him that trick.

And I mean, he talks about it on the, uh, The tapes that they, uh, where he, I don't know, they used it as evidence against him in the, in the court case or whatever the wire tap, uh, he talks about like the cyanide spray. I mean, and we talked about Robert Pongay, like, they did find a guy who was like, shot up near, uh, inside his ice cream truck and, you know, he was an arsonist and like, sounded like a pretty insane person.

I mean. I would, I think this part's accurate. Like, I mean, a lot of, to me, a lot of it hinges, like, Richard's story hinges on Robert Prange. Like, I wish we could have known a bit more about the guy, because it just seems, if he had made it up, like, the whole Robert Prange thing, if he made [00:28:00] it up, it's I mean, what a waste.

He should have been a novelist. It's true. One thing that they did with Robert Prange is that whole, the whole, uh, discussion that they had that Robert or Richard and Robert had about Robert wanting to devise this plan where they kill each other's families. And, um, Richard kills him there, but then he leaves him on the bench.

I think the real Robert Prange, if I'm not mistaken, was found shot in his Mr. Softy truck. Yeah, he was shot. Yeah. He was saw that's where they found him was that he was shot up in, I believe it was in his truck or it was in his shop where his truck was parked. Um, but the, the, his idea of killing each other's families, according to Richard, That was, uh, that was the thing that Richard decided, Oh, this guy's so this guy's like, it's so crazy.

I'm going to have to take care of him myself. Um, I mean, in Robert Prongy's defense, I mean, in a weird kind of twisted [00:29:00] way, the logic makes a bit of sense. You know, Richard's not going to want to do that to his own family. And Robert's not going to want to do that to his own family. So, I mean, why not use each other's, you know, skill set, it really is something that's almost from like a Novel, a spy novel that a really high end Special Forces guy becomes a Mr.

Softy truck driver so that he can just scope out neighborhoods without being noticed so that he could be a hitman. Like, it's, it's so insane that it, it has to be true. It really, that's, that's what I mean. Like, it seems like if Richard made that all up, like, what a waste. He should have been a film director, a novelist, write comic books, something.

Yeah, he would have made millions. Yeah. Oh yeah, for sure. Cause I can, I can only imagine the type of stories that he come up with in his head, you know, and we're supposed to believe that like Richard just kind of stumbled across this, [00:30:00] this Robert Progge's murder, uh, in like some, You know, obscure newspaper and, you know, put all the story together that, you know, with the ice cream truck and this is what he was actually doing.

I mean, I don't know, man. It seems pretty, it seems pretty far fetched. Maybe Richard exaggerated a bit of what Robert Prage was doing. Maybe, but I don't know. They must have, he must have been a hit man and Richard must have known them and they must have done some work together. Now, what were some things that you, I mean, I think in general, I really like this movie, but I had some, um, things to nitpick it.

What, what, what were some things that you didn't love so much about this movie? Um, to, to be honest with you, like the whole, they played up too much. Richard being like the perfect family man. And like trying to set that like dichotomy between the two. I mean, in the early interviews, this is he does present that kind of picture.

In the later interviews, he starts being a little [00:31:00] bit more honest. And I'm like, even Barbara talks a little bit more about what actually happened. It almost seemed like in the movie there. It was just convenience, like we're just going to use the first couple interviews and then we're just not going to deal, we'll deal with some aspects of the later interviews, but the first couple of interviews is a much more compelling story.

So we're just going to go with that. Uh, I mean, it's, this is where people kind of have like a serious problem with the movie because it presents this false picture of Richard Kuklinski, where he was like. He was able to just keep his ruthlessness, you know, as like a business. And he was a nice family guy when he came home.

And it's just not true. He was, well, you guys know from listening to the earlier Richard Kuklinski episode, he was a monster to everyone around him.

Steve here again with a quick word from our sponsors. It made a really compelling, compelling [00:32:00] narrative arc for a movie that he was a a family man who. Just kind of cracked once the stress came on too much, but I mean, this guy really was a monster. Barbara knew it. Barbara kept the sun away from which they cut out entirely the sun, which it didn't really matter, but they she really tried to insulate.

I think the son's name was Joseph, if I'm not mistaken, but she tried to insulate him from Richard as much as possible because she was worried that Richard would be become jealous of the son and try and take him out or, you know. Abuse him. And that's not necessarily portrayed at all in the movie that, you know, this that really vindictive and jealous side of Richard.

No, it's not at all. And I mean, somewhat in defense of the filmmaker, if you read the Philip Carlo book, I mean, I don't know, like, what [00:33:00] type of male lead do you have? To deal with there, I mean, they still capture that Richard was completely ruthless and I mean, they, you know, they show him killing that homeless person for no particular reason and killing that guy at the pool hall because he, you know, made a joke about his wife or, you know, I'm not his wife at the time, his girlfriend or what have you.

And I like, so they show, they show that he's a serial killer, really. Um, but like, You know, we're not going to get into all the details about the Carlo book, but I mean, how I mean, how would you depict that? Like, I don't know. I'm asking you, like, how would you do it? I don't think you could do it. You can't do it in that format.

I think you in a movie. You can't. I think it's too difficult to show those 2. Different sides of Richard that he more or less was a normal family man more or less. I mean, he did. I mean, he was absolutely violent and all [00:34:00] that stuff. But you got to also remember that this was in the. 50s, 60s, 70s, I think some of that domestic abuse sort of thing that he did was a lot more common than in suburbia, if you will.

Not to the extremes that Richard took it, but I think that if a cop came to that scene, I don't think that he would haul off the person. Maybe he would, maybe he wouldn't. But, um, And the fact that on the other hand, that Richard Kuklinski was a, a mafia hitman serial killer. It's too hard to jam all that together in a two hour movie.

Yeah. And it's he, there's just literally nothing to like about Richard after reading the Carlo book too. Like there's nothing there's, I don't know. There's nothing to like, at least like, but this movie. He can walk away from and obviously Richard's despicable and an evil person, but you can walk away and go like, you can think to yourself, well, this guy was kind of a badass, right?

[00:35:00] He was a hit man for the mob. Do you know what I mean? Right. Um, but they almost, some people say they try to make them seem sympathetic. I don't really think the film does that. I don't know what's your opinion. I, I think sympathetic might be too far. I think they're trying, they're trying to turn him into an anti hero, I think.

To some degree, when he's just rotten to the core that I, he, in the, I think you're, I think you're, I agree with you at the, in the later interviews, he did a lot more to turn himself into the anti hero. Then. Even what he did when he was in the earlier, in his earlier story, but he's, he, he wasn't that at all.

No, there's nothing, there's nothing remotely heroic about Richard at all. I mean, you can walk away even after reading the Carlo book and go, I mean, at the end of the day, the guy's kind of a badass. Like he was doing hits for the mob and he was, you know, unlike a lot of these other [00:36:00] serial killers, he was actually killing tough guys and, you know, guys that could probably You know, compete with him in terms, in terms of physically and what have you.

I mean, you could walk away thinking that I know, I know I did. Um, but there's nothing, you know, there's no, you don't want to sit and talk to Richard. And, you know, I don't know, maybe I would, if he was still alive, just to kind of understand the guy a little bit better. But, um, yeah, there's nothing like you wouldn't want there's at no point do you go to yourself?

It's like, oh man, I wish I had Richard as a friend. No, no. I think then that leads us kind of to the end of what we could do to make this movie better. And I think that we'll get into one. We'll set aside the obvious one for a minute. I think anybody who's really watched this movie and followed Richard Kuklinski, there's one obvious thing that they could do.

But I think that one scene I would have loved to have seen them include was, um, It was in one of the Iceman tapes. I think it was the earlier one. Richard [00:37:00] explained this hit he did on, um, I think it was his friend even. And it was at some sort of nightclub, like 70s nightclub, and everybody's dancing disco and everything.

And Richard dressed up in the most outrageous disco outfit he could find. And so the six foot five 300 pound guy, he says he danced and shimmied all through the through this disco. And then he got up to the guy and the guy recognized them. But before he could do anything, Richard blew cyanide in his face.

And, um, They showed something of that scene, didn't they, in the movie? Yeah, like, Leo Merckx, Nino Gaggi, hires him, hires Richard to kill, uh, Sicoli, who's the henchman that Roy's with, which is, I never, I don't understand why they didn't just use, like, Joseph Testa or Anthony Senter. Um, and he goes into the club, and he does the [00:38:00] cyanide spray.

Kaila in the nightclub, but he's not wearing like the, the crate. They should have, I don't understand it. Why, when they just haven't put on that crazy suit and just recreate that, that scene, um, yeah, he, Richard, he just explains it so well, and he gives you such mental imagery and the movie just fell completely flat on that one.

Yeah, I guess maybe they tried filming it with the crazy disco suit and it just, they're like, no, we just can't do this. It looks ridiculous. It just takes you right out of the scene. I maybe that's their logic. But I mean, if you're going to watch a movie. About the Iceman, I don't know, most people would probably go in there thinking, knowing a little bit about the guy, I guess, right?

I, I would have just filmed it with the crazy suit on it because that's part of Richard's story is, you know, these, you know, him wearing these crazy suits and like disguises and, you know, it sounds like he had like a whole room just full of disguises with like fake noses and [00:39:00] wigs and. Different suits and now I think, and I'll leave it to you.

What would you love to have seen them do with this movie? I, to be honest with you, I would have, me and you were talking earlier. I, I would have liked to have done like a, like a mini series, to be honest with you, where you have, uh, Roy de Mayo's and Richard's story running parallel. Uh, we were mentioning it earlier.

I would have loved to have seen, uh, Ray Liotta do the Roy DeMeo story, but I also would have loved to have seen Richard's story, you know, running parallel to Roy's because they're, they're connected, but they're not connected and they're connected enough that, and they Thank you. Around there at the same time that you could tell Richard story and you can tell Roy story and be like, you know, we're all we're spending 20 minutes here and then 20 minutes there.

And there's episode 1 and do, I don't know, like a 5 part mini series where you show. The entirety [00:40:00] of Roy's story and the entirety of Richard's story, I think it would have worked really well. They could have really played it up too because Roy was almost in competition with John Gotti. There was all that was going on pretty much in parallel too.

I think to have the Gotti story, the Roy story, with Richard Kuklinski in there, and all the stuff with Neal Delacroix, and uh, Nino Gaggi, all of that bouncing off of each other at the think that's the story that really needs to be told. And unfortunately, Ray Liotta can't do it because I mean, that was, that's one of the, I think one of the things where we'll all have to live with is that Roy Ray Liotta couldn't play, uh, Roy de Mayo more if you were to do it now, who would you have play Roy just out of curiosity?

I can't think, especially once Ray Liotta played him, I don't think anybody, I think that's just an idea that'll never [00:41:00] happen. Yeah, the only person I can think of off the top of my head, I know it sounds weird because he's not really Italian, is, uh, Tom Hardy, because he has that certain level of intensity.

But still, I think, Ray Liotta, I mean, he was just the, the king of the Mafia movie, and, it, it just, I don't think it would end, just out of respect for Ray Liotta, I think it has, it's, It's done now. Yeah, it's just the more I think about this mini series and the two, the two stories running parallel, like, oh, my God, would have been brilliant.

I think that that might be something that comes back around because we're kind of in a low spot of mafia movies that, you know, there was a big. A lot of them in the 90s, the early 2000s, and that genre has lost popularity a little bit. I think when it comes back around, I think we'll see some good things come out that may be like that.

Yeah, well, we need a new crop of actors to be able to play [00:42:00] some of these roles. A lot of these guys are, you know, they're dying now. Ray passed away, I believe. Paul Servino passed away recently. Yeah, I mean, Martin Scorsese is not getting any younger. Um, I mean, there's Joe Pesci and Robert De Niro. Like, these are old men.

We need a new crop of mob guys. I think it's maybe another, it's maybe a genre that'll be revisited and viewed in a different way, too. I think that This, this Iceman movie, in a way, was kind of a throwback to an earlier kind of movie, kind of like what, I mean, we haven't talked about it yet, and we probably will, the Irishman was an, a throwback movie, but I think we need something new out of the mob genre.

Yeah, I would agree with that. Like the Irishman was kind of like Martin Scorsese's swan song to the whole mob genre, which I mean, really, I wouldn't say built his career on it, but it was a huge part of his career. [00:43:00] Um, I don't see him doing another mob movie. I don't see any of those guys ever doing another mob movie.

That was like their farewell and we're good. We're gonna end up doing that movie. But, um, you know, it was quite. Quite well done, but I, yeah, we need, I don't know, something, yeah, we need somebody, we need some different actors, we need some fresh blood into the genre. We're going to leave it at that for today.

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